Reservations protocols are transport layer protocols designed to reserve resources across a network for an integrated services Internet. For audio, video, and other media streams, as well as various control system protocols, guaranteed quality-of-service (QoS) network services are desired to bound delay and minimize jitter that can affect the quality of such streams.
Existing L2 (Layer-2) or L3 (Layer-3) peer-to-peer protocols are not designed for a mixed bridged/routed environment, which are further complicated by overlay technologies.